Obama Camp Stumping at Range Fuels

Craig Rubens

Oct. 13, 2008 - 10:09 AM PDT
Oct. 13, 2008 - 10:09 AM PDT

The Barack Obama campaign is taking its New Energy Economy tour to Colorado and will be visiting cellulosic ethanol startup Range Fuels’ research and development center in Denver today. Obama’s national campaign co-chair, Federico Peña, is running the New Energy Economy tour through the battleground state, campaigning on the idea that the new economy the U.S. needs now will come from domestic clean energy.

The state’s Democratic governor Bill Ritter, Congressman Ed Perlmutter and Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper are joining the tour to support Obama’s energy plan, which promises to invest $10 $15 billion a year for 15 10 years in clean energy to create some 5 million green-collar jobs. The tour is also set to visit Sturman Industries, a developer of digitally controlled high-efficiency fuel systems, and the New Belgium Brewery, best-known for its Fat Tire beer and powered by wind and recycled waste energy. (Even green campaigns get thirsty!)

This election cycle has been littered with cleantech pit stops. Over a year ago, Obama stopped at Conserv Fuel in Brentwood, Calif., to voice his support of biodiesel. Meanwhile, McCain decided to give his big climate policy speech at a Vestas wind-turbine plant. And when candidates couldn’t come to the cleantech, cleantech came to candidates as seen with Vestas, which trucked in a 131-foot-long wind turbine blade to display at both the Democratic and Republican National Conventions.

But cleantech photo opps were only part of this election’s energy posturing. McCain also posed on an oil rig in the Gulf Coast to reiterate his calls for drilling now.